Diplomacy & Crisis News

Whatever Putin’s intentions are, he is hemmed in by limited capabilities.

The visit aimed to counter fracturing Western support for Ukraine.

Digital engineering has been around for some time. But only now is it coming into widespread use, both for the design and development of new platforms, weapons systems, components, and software, and for sustainment and upgrading activities. Digital engineering has the potential to radically change the way the Department of Defense interacts with the defense industrial base. It can transform the defense industrial base and the way the defense department accesses services and support. Specifically, it offers a large number of companies, particularly those not currently engaged in defense work, the opportunity to participate in the defense industrial base.

A prime example of how digital engineering is changing how sustainment and upgrades can be done comes from Sierra Nevada Corporation (SNC). SNC is at the leading edge of the digital revolution. The company’s applications of digital engineering and related technologies and techniques are likely to result in a change not only in defense procurement and contracting practices, but in the overall defense acquisition culture, which was formed before the IT revolution.

What is digital engineering? One authoritative source defines it thusly: “Digital engineering describes a holistic approach to the design of a complex system: It uses models/data instead of documents, integration of data across models, and the culture change across project teams to realize significant risk reduction on construction cost and schedule.”

With digital engineering, rather than having to build a platform, system, or component, digital data is fed into validated models, which enables engineers to accurately create a digital representation of the object under investigation and use this representation in models to experiment with its functions, examine design changes or validate modifications. The digital representative of a physical object or system, however displayed or employed, is often referred to as a digital twin.

The defense department is pursuing a digital engineering strategy intended to transform the way platforms and systems are designed, developed, produced, and tested. This strategy also seeks to change defense acquisition culture by using digital engineering to speed the overall process and provide the tools needed to streamline sustainment and upgrades of existing, even legacy, capabilities. Recent applications for the T-7 trainer have been developed for the purpose of speeding up design and development.

The digital engineering revolution comes at a time when the defense industrial base is facing significant challenges. The U.S. economy has seen a decades-long decline in manufacturing with the losses of millions of jobs. In addition, there has been a significant consolidation of the defense industrial base since the end of the Cold War, leaving just a handful of major prime contractors and a supply chain marked by many single points of failure. The reduction in production capacity has also led to an ongoing tug of war between demands for new production and the needs for spare parts to support sustainment.

The innovative application of digital engineering, particularly to sustainment, could both significantly enhance the ability of the U.S. and allied defense industrial bases to meet wartime demand while also reducing defense department maintenance and support costs. The creation of validated digital versions of technical data packages that are high-fidelity representatives of existing platforms, systems, components, and parts would allow new and innovative manufacturing and integration companies to compete for contracts heretofore restricted to firms in possession of the needed intellectual property.

Sierra Nevada Corporation has been a pioneer in the area of digital engineering, demonstrating what can be done to improve sustainment and ease the process of introducing platform and system modification while reducing costs. SNC has demonstrated the ability to support and upgrade a variety of aircraft without the need for the original equipment manufacturer’s (OEM) proprietary data.

Using modern sensing techniques, including laser tracking and mapping, the company can create OEM-level technical data packages (TDPs) and even digital twins of existing platforms and develop the data to run high-fidelity models. The data collected by SNC is useful in creating and validating digital twins. These TDPs do not replicate all the data for a system and platform; rather, they are focused on specific areas for sustainment or modification. Consequently, neither the TDPs nor the models infringe on OEM proprietary intellectual property. Notably, SNC does not assert a right to the digital data it collects. Likewise, the data collected is limited to the information necessary to support specific work. Hence, it does not violate OEM intellectual property interests.

SNC has constructed TDPs for a number of platforms. For the Navy, the company has created TDPs for both the F/A-18E/F strike fighter and the CMV-22B Osprey. They have now expanded their efforts to support the aircraft of Air Mobility Command. SNC can provide its customers with all the necessary airworthiness certifications that support their modification and sustainment activities.

SNC is applying digital engineering in ways that can change the defense industrial base culture and the relationship between DoD and the private sector. The combination of TDPs, digital twins, and models could open up activities once restricted to OEMs. By employing digital engineering techniques, non-OEMs can undertake a broad range of maintenance, repair, and operations (MRO) activities. The OEMs, in turn, would be able to focus on what they do best, which is the development and production of new equipment and platforms.

In essence, Sierra Nevada Corporation has created the equivalent in defense sustainment of the “Right to Repair” that has become central to the relationship between automotive and electronics companies and independent providers of aftermarket parts and services. The use of digital engineering as practiced by companies such as SNC can significantly expand the pool of companies available to perform sustainment and modification beyond those traditionally part of the aerospace and defense sector. This supports greater competition, faster sustainment, and reduced costs.

SNC busts the traditional model for performing MRO work while demonstrating how mid-size high-tech defense companies can apply digital engineering to a broad array of engineering, design, development, installation, test, and certification services that were once the province of only a few defense primes. SNC’s employment of both digital engineering and digital twinning is revolutionary. This revolution must now embrace program managers, who need to develop confidence that the products of digital engineering are equal in quality and validity to what can be provided by OEMs.

Dan Gouré, Ph.D., is a vice president at the public-policy research think tank Lexington Institute. Gouré has a background in the public sector and U.S. federal government, most recently serving as a member of the 2001 Department of Defense Transition Team. You can follow him on Twitter at @dgoure and the Lexington Institute @LexNextDC. Read his full bio here.

This article was first published by Real Clear Defense.

Image: Shutterstock.

How did Chinese Communist Party General Secretary Xi Jinping in just a decade manage to dismantle the collective leadership system carefully crafted by Deng Xiaoping, sour China’s relations with most of its neighbours and set China on a collision course with the United States? Western analysts generally focus on the authoritarian policies put in place by Xi since his rise to power in 2012, while Chinese scholars blame Western overreaction, starting in 2017 with US President Donald Trump, who made it clear that he wanted to prevent China from replacing the US as the global hegemon.

In Overreach: how China derailed its peaceful rise, Susan Shirk seeks explanations more widely. She focuses in particular on the era of Xi’s predecessor, CCP General Secretary Hu Jintao, who in her view set the stage for much of what has happened under Xi. Shirk has been following Chinese politics for decades, has published extensively on China and currently chairs the 21st Century China Center of the School of Global Policy and Strategy at the University of California, San Diego. She has also served as US deputy assistant secretary of state responsible for East Asia and the Pacific.

Hu Jintao is generally seen as a weak leader who failed to build on the reforms initiated by his predecessor, Jiang Zemin. His term in office (2002–2012) is usually considered a ‘lost decade’. However, Shirk reminds us that much of China’s current overreach started under Hu. China’s fortification of rocks and shoals in the South China Sea gained pace in the early 2000s, its coastguard began to harass other countries’ ships in 2006, and the global financial crisis of 2008–09 boosted Beijing’s confidence and marked the start of a more openly assertive foreign policy.

Shirk ascribes this early overreach to Hu’s inability to manage the politburo standing committee, China’s top decision-making body. When Hu took over from Jiang, he increased the size of the standing committee from seven to nine, elevating the bosses responsible for internal security and propaganda to the committee.

However, in contrast to his strong-willed predecessors, the low-key Hu viewed himself simply as the first among equals. This left the expanded standing committee unwieldy and rudderless. As a result, the committee’s powerful members, often referred to as the ‘nine dragons’, each acted independently to expand their fiefdoms and resources, with Hu unable to control them. Instead of the collective leadership intended by Deng, the standing committee was sometimes referred to as simply a collection of leaders.

Shirk cites numerous examples of poor coordination. In 2007, the People’s Liberation Army tested an anti-satellite weapon by shooting down one of its own satellites, in the process spreading debris and endangering the satellites of other countries. When questioned by the US, China’s Foreign Ministry said it was unaware of the test. Coordination was particularly weak in the South China Sea, with the Foreign Ministry, navy, coastguard and fishing groups led by provincial governments all independently stirring up disputes in the name of the national interest.

As Deng’s policy of ‘hiding one’s strength and biding one’s time’ started to unravel, Hu ‘sent the pendulum swinging back to Xi’s Mao-style overconcentration of power’, Shirk writes. Xi inherited a governance system that was poorly coordinated and deeply corrupt, but with the foundations for overreach already firmly in place. As one Chinese entrepreneur described it, ‘Deng Xiaoping unplugged the Party’s Leninist machine, but Xi just put in the plug and it started up right away.’

Overreach is thoroughly researched and brims with information on events during the Hu and Xi eras obtained from interviews with well-informed insiders. A particularly useful chapter titled ‘Inside the black box’ outlines the workings of a political system ‘almost as opaque as North Korea’s’.

Under Xi, foreign policy went to extremes, security and anti-corruption measures were tightened and paranoia grew, with cadres at all levels scrambling to please the leader. As Xi continued to rein in the private sector and the economy faltered, dissatisfaction within the CCP also deepened. This reportedly came to a head at the party’s informal gathering in Beidahe last August.

Shirk’s book is a pleasure to read, but would have benefited from a final round of fact-checking. Her assertion that ‘Chinese diplomats now lead more than fifteen UN agencies’ is an exaggeration. And Shirk claims that APEC was ‘founded by the United States’, without any reference to the pivotal role played by Australian Prime Minister Bob Hawke.

These minor errors notwithstanding, Shirk makes a valuable contribution to our understanding of how relations between China and the West have deteriorated, noting that China went into overdrive well before Xi came to power.

Shirk concludes with recommendations for China and the US to bring their relationship onto a more even keel. Some are practical, while others, in the current inflamed environment, are unrealistic. But it’s hard to disagree with Shirk that re-establishing consultations and getting the two countries’ leaders to meet regularly would be a good place to start.

Robert Wihtol is an adjunct faculty member at the Asian Institute of Management and former Asian Development Bank country director for China and director general for East Asia.

This article was first published by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute.

Image: Gil Corzo / Shutterstock.com

Just a few weeks ago, the United States and Vietnam announced an upgrade in relations to a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership, Vietnam’s highest tier of foreign relations, putting the United States on par with China. Keen observers of Vietnamese-American relations have expected this upgrade for some time, and it centers around both countries’ aligned support for the rules-based order and concerns over Chinese aggression in the region. However, this upgrade is about more than just signaling to China. The agreement includes provisions to expand engagement in trade and development. However, one overlooked area of cooperation is the commitment to fostering collaboration in the Rare Earth Element (REE) sector. This cooperative venture holds significant promise and deserves greater attention in discussions about the burgeoning partnership between the United States and Vietnam.

The seventeen elements comprising REEs are necessary for several technologies in domains such as health care, electronics, and defense technology. However, their most pertinent significance lies in their vital contribution to carbon-neutral technologies. For example, Neodymium is essential for wind turbines, Dysprosium is necessary for electric vehicles, and Lanthanum is critical for battery storage. Their importance is only expected to grow, as the International Energy Agency predicts REE demand will increase between three and seven times.

Despite the paradoxical abundance of REEs, they are not spread out evenly but disproportionately controlled by a select few countries. China possesses the largest REE reserves in the world, including 85 percent of the world’s rare earth processing capacity and 34 percent of its REE total. As a result, Beijing dominates the REE sector from mining to processing. More importantly, between 2018 and 2021, 74 percent of U.S. rare earth imports originated in China, while 80 percent derived from China between 2014 and 2018. 

That imbalance is a significant vulnerability for the United States as REEs become far more critical for renewable energy and U.S.-China relations deteriorate rapidly. Notably, China has proven willing to use this leverage as a stick when countries act contrary to its interests. Consider the Japanese example where China announced a cut of the exports of REEs to Japan following a collision between a Chinese fishing vessel and the Japanese Coast Guard in disputed territory that resulted in the Japanese arresting the Chinese fishing captain. It is also worth noting that in the face of growing great power competition, China, at the start of 2023, has reduced its rare earth mineral exports by 4.4 percent.

As the Biden administration has argued, securing REE is a question of national security. It must find an alternative but won’t find it at home. Despite technically having the sixth largest reserve in the world, the United States only has one rare earth mineral mine and a mere fraction of the amount China possesses. Of the top five largest reserves by country, only one U.S. ally, Australia, finds itself in the top five at fifth. 

Vietnam can be a critical partner in the American struggle to wean itself off Chinese REEs. Fortunately, as a part of the upgrade in relations, both countries signed a Memorandum of Understanding to develop broad cooperation in this area, including “attract[ing] quality investment for integrated REE sector development.” This partnership makes sense for a couple of reasons. 

First, Vietnam has proven a reliable market and a suitable alternative to the Chinese market as it and the United States elevate relations. The United States has bet on Vietnam as a prime candidate for its de-risking strategy, which, although ill-defined, here is taken to mean reducing its risk posed by deteriorating relations with China by restricting Chinese access to sensitive markets by diversifying its supply chains. Vietnam has been one of the prime beneficiaries of this new strategy as various companies have shifted some of their production to Vietnam, including American companies like Microsoft, Apple, Google, etc.

Second, Vietnam is a major source of untapped potential. Despite its relatively small size, the American Geological Survey (AGS) estimates it contains about 20 million tons of the world’s rare earth reserves, valued at $3 trillion. In comparison, it is only behind China, which AGS estimates contains about 44 million tons, and Brazil, estimated to hold 22 million tons.

Third, Vietnam has made it clear that mining rare earth minerals is a critical industry for development and has taken steps to attract foreign direct investment in this area, like tax incentives, creating mining zones, and streamlining measures to speed up the time it takes to obtain a license, as evidenced by Resolution No. 10-NQ/TW, which established the strategic direction for the mining industry in Vietnam. Resultingly, last year, it boosted its rare earth output tenfold and welcomed a Korean firm that will open a magnet firm that could alone meet half of the United States neodymium magnet (utilized for various products in the field of information technology) demand. 

Still, tapping into Vietnam’s resources can be tricky. It has a notoriously layered and complex regulatory system that makes it challenging to enter its market. Moreover, the Vietnamese public has had bad experiences with foreign-led mining projects. Largely Chinese-led, the public has accused these projects of labor and human rights abuses and a palpable example of environmental degradation that benefits foreign powers at the cost of local health and the environment. Vietnam also notoriously lacks the technical expertise and capital to extract and process REE resources.

Still, despite potential obstacles, the United States should seize the opportunity presented by the recent improvement in relations to forge a partnership in Rare Earth Element (REE) development. The significance of REEs is continuously expanding, and securing alternative sources beyond China has become a paramount national security concern for the United States. The current upswing in relations and Vietnam’s keen interest in advancing its REE industry offers an auspicious moment for the United States to diversify its REE supply chain, reducing its dependency on Chinese sources.

Vincenzo Caporale has a BA from UC Berkeley in Comparative Politics and an M.Phil from the University of Cambridge in International Relations. He is an Editor at Large at the Realist Review and a Contributor at Modern Diplomacy. His work focuses on Vietnamese development, politics, and foreign policy. You can reach Vincenzo or follow his work on Twitter @VincenzoCIV.

Image: Shutterstock.

As the United States and the Soviet Union discovered half a century ago, China is finding that its deepening engagement with the Middle East is more frustrating than rewarding. Energy, economic interests, and security are the main goals of Chinese diplomacy in the Middle East. Beijing’s foreign policy, mimicking that of Washington’s in the 1950s, seeks as broad an appeal as possible to minimize energy dependence on a single country or coalition and offset the risks inherent in dealing with unstable regimes and regional alignments. China’s de-risking strategy means balanced relations with pairs of historical rivals, such as Saudi Arabia and Iran, all of which puts it at odds with Israel. Beijing’s solution to the apparent contradiction of courting adversaries is a heavy dose of trade and investment while insincerely offering mediation over regional tensions.   

Despite Beijing announcing its contribution to the Iran-Saudi rapprochement in April of 2023, this development is more accurately characterized as a ceasefire primarily facilitated by the winding down of the conflict in Yemen. Aside from diplomatic encounters and exchanges, there have been no substantive changes in either Tehran or Riyadh’s policy declarations or posture. In July 2023, during the inauguration of its embassy in Tehran, Saudi Arabia refused to hold a conference in a hall with a photo of General Qassem Soleimani, the former commander of Iran’s Quds Force, and the conference moved to another venue. Iran’s “Shia Crescent” strategy still remains, although now as a diplomatic rather than a military effort. 

Beijing requested that the contents of its twenty-five-year accord with Iran not be published, most likely because of its blowback on Chinese-Saudi relations, though the New York Times managed to obtain a draft. The agreement focuses on exchanging Chinese investment as part of its Belt & Road Initiative for secure oil exports. What has not changed is China’s insistence on Iran curbing any move towards nuclear weapons, which it is pursuing primarily to assuage its Gulf Arab partners. Iran is a valuable geopolitical bridge if China extends strategic pipelines and rail links through Pakistan or Central Asia farther into the Black Sea region or the Eastern Mediterranean. During the visit of Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi to Beijing, The China Daily described “Iran [as] an ideal country in the Middle East region to advance the Belt and Road project and in turn, [and] cooperation with China will be a key to Iran’s economic development.” 

However, Iran's publications and public opinion have taken a negative view of this accord, and some have questioned its fairness, given China’s propensity to demand complete control over its investment projects. To date, the accord has produced no observable economic benefits for Iran. This is partly because Iran’s manufacturing and non-energy sectors are not sufficiently developed to benefit from export opportunities to China. China has not yet made any significant infrastructural investments in Iran. In fact, because of concerns over Western sanctions and China’s Arab allies like Saudi Arabia and Iraq, Beijing has so far refused to invest in Iran’s oil fields and facilities. Some estimates show that Sinopec’s six-year delay in the first phase of “Yadavaran Square” has caused a loss of more than $3 billion to Iran's economy. Furthermore, China is far more likely to displace Iranian influence in Central Asia than integrate their regional interaction. 

The value of China’s trade with Iraq is double that of Iran. China has widened its relations with Iraq beyond energy and seeks to displace the dollar with the yuan. Tehran is aware that there is a zero-sum aspect to trade relations: any increase in Iraqi exports to China can decrease energy revenues for Iran. However, relations with Baghdad are further compromised by Beijing’s cultivation of good relations with the government of the U.S.-backed Kurdistan region of Iraq, giving it access to the oil output of the Irbil region. The Kurdistan region in turn is expecting China to pressure Tehran from conducting its occasional missile strikes against bases alleged to provide sanctuary to anti-Tehran dissidents and Kurdish separatists. Turkey, Syria, Iraq, and Iran consider the independent Kurdish polities dangerous focal points for centrifugal ethnic social movements and safe harbors for terrorist groups.   

It is almost impossible for Beijing to satisfy both Iranian and Arab security interests fully. In December 2022, Chinese president Xi Jinping arrived in Riyadh and issued a joint statement with representatives of the GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council). Despite China’s broad diplomatic approach, its sidestepping of the territorial dispute between the UAE and Iran led to criticism from Tehran. There were calls by angry Iranian netizens suggesting a reciprocal withdrawal of the recognition of China’s claim to Taiwan. 

Paradoxically, Qatar and Oman are the Gulf Arab countries that enjoy the friendliest relations with both China and Iran. Nonetheless, they are also strong U.S. partners and friendly with European NATO countries. Consequently, China’s dealings with Qatar have been limited primarily to energy and investment. Chinese extraction companies have made repeated investments in Qatar’s North Field, which will export liquid natural gas to China for at least the next two decades. On the other hand, Doha is also the only Persian Gulf government to side with the Western democracies on the issue of China’s genocidal treatment of the Uyghur ethnic minority. 

Doha’s diplomacy is complex, to say the least, with significant influence on regional public opinion managed through media outlet Al Jazeera. It shares in common with Iran, the world’s largest gas field (the South Pars). Qatar also hosts the largest U.S. airbase in the Persian Gulf and has refused Russian arms purchases, such as the S-400 missile defense system. It furthermore consistently supports Turkish initiatives in Syria and Iraq, which go against Iranian interests. Yet, Doha acts as a mediator between the United States and Iran, as well as the Taliban and Yemeni Houthis. Similarly, while Doha has conditioned recognition of Israel on progress on the status of Palestinians, Al Jazeera has hosted a preponderance of commentators that condemn any agreement with Israel. Qatar may be exchanging information with Israel’s security establishment, given that, unlike other Gulf States, its foreign aid transits to Gaza solely through Israeli checkpoints.   

Finally, despite China’s growing commerce with Israel, a major U.S. ally, Beijing has stated its interest in resolving the Palestinian issue. Iranian officials consider the visit of Mahmoud Abbas, the head of the Palestinian Authority, to Beijing as evidence of China’s efforts. This visit represented the highest level of recognition of Palestinians conferred to date by China. Wang Wenbin, the spokesperson of the Chinese Foreign Ministry, told reporters: “Abbas is an old and loyal friend of the Chinese people and the first Arab head of state to visit China this year.” He added: “China has always supported the just cause of the Palestinian people to restore their legitimate national rights.” At the beginning of this year, China’s foreign minister, Chin Gang, announced to both Israeli and Palestinian officials that Beijing is interested in playing a constructive role in negotiations over the status of the Palestinians. In addition, in July of 2023, Chinese media announced that China’s Foreign Minister Chin Gang reiterated in a telephone conversation with Israeli foreign minister Eli Cohen and Palestinian foreign minister Riyad al-Maliki that Beijing is ready to mediate between the two sides. Tel Aviv did not take up China’s offer, and there were no resulting changes to Chinese-Israeli commerce. 

Unlike the Soviet Union, which was energy self-sufficient and free to pursue an ideological foreign policy against the Western democracies, China’s freedom of action is severely constrained by its dependence on imports from a region with many cross-cutting cleavages. Furthermore, the history of regime and domestic upheavals compels China to spread its imports as widely as possible among the oil and gas-rich states of the Middle East, further immobilizing any pursuit of security diplomacy. To avoid any retaliatory energy supply disruptions, such as what the West suffered during the 1973 oil embargo following the 1973 October War between Israel and the frontline Arab states, Beijing has prioritized avoiding political controversy. Given China’s trade with close U.S. allies, there is no room even for “Wolf Warrior” diplomacy. Integrating the Persian Gulf and the Middle East into Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative is not particularly controversial, at least for the countries in the region, given their long experience with managing engineering firms and mega-projects. In the event of war over Taiwan, Beijing might find its diplomacy sorely tested as many of its regional trading partners will be compelled by the close presence of the U.S. Navy to pick sides. The implication for Western states, particularly the United States and India, is not to exaggerate the security consequences of China’s deeper penetration of the Middle East.  

Dr. Julian Spencer-Churchill is an associate professor of international relations at Concordia University and the author of Militarization and War (2007) and Strategic Nuclear Sharing (2014). He has published extensively on Pakistan security issues and arms control and completed research contracts at the Office of Treaty Verification at the Office of the Secretary of the Navy and the then Ballistic Missile Defense Office (BMDO).  He has also conducted fieldwork in Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, and Egypt and is a consultant. He is a former Operations Officer of the 3rd Field Engineer Regiment from the latter end of the Cold War to shortly after 9/11. He tweets at @Ju_Sp_Churchill.

Behrouz Ayaz is an Iranian political analyst specializing in the foreign policy of Iran, Afghanistan, South Asia, and Terrorism. He graduated from Tarbiat Modares University with an MA in International Relations. He is currently collaborating with SCFR (Strategic Council on Foreign Relations). Ayaz has co-authored the book The Nature, Dimensions, and Future of ISIS and has published articles, essays, and policy papers related to his expertise. He tweets at @behrooz_ayaz

Image: Shutterstock.

The simple answer to the question of whether North Korea will ever willingly give up its nuclear weapons is: “No.” 

The more complex and nuanced answer is: “Hell, no.” 

OK, maybe that is a bit too dramatic. I am a historian, after all, and people in my profession tend to define “ever” as covering a really, really, really, long period of time.

Strange and unexpected things do happen over really, really, really, long periods of time.

But, watching a DPRK leader willingly giving up these weapons would certainly be near the top of that list.

Why North Korea Wants Nuclear Weapons 

The critical factor is that North Korea’s commitment to its nuclear program is not just a product of the international security environment, but is instead rooted in domestic politics and ideology.

The Kim family has long positioned itself as the great protector of the Korean people, an almost superhuman line of leaders that is uniquely qualified to protect the country against the evil machinations of foreign antagonists. For much of the nation’s early years, Kim Il Sung rooted this position in both economic and security terms, insisting that only he could lead the country down this dual path towards a socialist utopia.

Long-term economic problems, however, have largely rendered moot the Kim family’s claim to rule in terms of national prosperity. Instead, Kim’s son and grandson have steadily shifted the emphasis to their ability to ensure national security through a military-first policy. And recent years have seen Kim Jong Un make this link between his rule and nuclear weapons increasingly explicit and central to his regime’s raison d'être.

Reports of domestic propaganda over the last few years have reflected this close linkage. North Korean propaganda posters––briefly modulated during the Kim-Trump talks––have returned to celebrate alleged nuclear triumphs and the greatness of the DPRK government that produced them. Nuclear weapons are featured on stamps, calendars, and school notebooks. Media broadcasts assure the population that nuclear weapons not only keep the nefarious United States at bay but also offer a path towards economic prosperity by forcing the US to remove sanctions and treat the country as an equal.

Government rhetoric similarly applauds the country’s nuclear status, even codifying its nuclear policy and status into law that declares the program “irreversible,” while Kim explains that he will not yield on the program even if the nation faced a century of sanctions. Nukes, he declared, represented the “dignity, body, and absolute power of the state.”

History will tell us whether Kim’s efforts to retain power by so closely linking his regime to the nuclear weapons program proves successful in the long-term. For now, though, any effort to truly understand the central role the program plays in DPRK society must start by recognizing the domestic political imperatives that lay behind it. And those domestic political imperatives mean that as long as there is a Kim family dictatorship in North Korea, there will be nuclear weapons alongside it.

Mitchell Lerner is professor of History and faculty fellow at the Mershon Center for International Security Studies at The Ohio State University, where he is also director of the East Asian Studies Center. Lerner has received fellowships and grants from the Korea Foundation, Lyndon Johnson Presidential Library, Dwight Eisenhower Presidential Library, and John F. Kennedy Presidential Library. He has served as editor of Passport: The Society of Historians of American Foreign Relations Review, and is now associate editor of the a Journal of American-East Asian Relations. In 2005, Lerner won the Alumni Award for Distinguished Teaching, and in 2019, he won the Ohio Academy of History's Distinguished Teacher Prize. In 2022, he was the Peter Hahn Distinguished Service Award from the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations.

Analogies and other symbols can be helpful to reduce and simplify more complex ideas. Along these lines, Singapore’s defense policy and its Singapore Armed Forces (SAF) have been likened to various images, which enable a quick grasp of its primary components.

Today, the security environment confronting Singapore is increasingly complex, and unconventional threats from the information and digital domains have progressively featured.

The last few years also saw “two significant disruptive events—the COVID-19 pandemic and the unlawful invasion of Ukraine by Russia,” as Defense Minister Ng Eng Hen highlighted during the 2023 Shangri-La Dialogue (SLD).

This is coupled with intensifying U.S.-China competition. In 2020, as the pandemic forced the cancellation of the SLD that year, Singapore’s Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong stressed that “the troubled U.S.-Chinese relationship raises profound questions about Asia’s future and the shape of the emerging international order.” He stated that “Southeast Asian countries, including Singapore,” are “especially concerned, as they live at the intersection of the interests of various major powers and must avoid being caught in the middle or forced into invidious choices.”

At the same time, the Next Generation SAF enters its fourth incarnation, following the first generation from its establishment to the early 1980s, the second generation’s modernization until the late 1990s, and the third generation's transformation from 2004 onward. As part of this makeover, a new fourth service, the Digital and Intelligence Service (DIS), was also launched in 2022.

How, then, should Singapore and the Next Gen SAF deal with these myriad security challenges, and which image best represents such?

To begin with, it is helpful to consider the appropriateness of the analogies for the previous generations of the SAF and Singapore’s defense policy.

Singapore had to provide for its own defense upon independence in 1965. There was an inherent sense of vulnerability due to the island’s geostrategic context, which included the lack of strategic depth, natural resources, or a domestic market, and being “wedged between the sea and airspace of two larger neighbours.” Furthermore, there was also a substantial threat perception shaped by historical episodes such as the Japanese Occupation, “Confrontation” with Indonesia, and the Malayan Emergency against the communists. Separation from the Federation of Malaysia and the subsequent British “east of Suez” withdrawal exacerbated matters.

Yet, the first-generation SAF started humbly. It only had two infantry battalions without noteworthy armor or artillery. Singapore only set up its navy formally in 1967 and the air force in 1968. It began conscription in 1967.

Singapore’s defense policy at that point was hence likened to a “poisonous shrimp” strategy by then Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew in a speech in 1966, “Big fish eat small fish; small fish eat shrimps . . . Species in nature develop defence mechanisms. Some shrimps are poisonous: they sting. If you eat them, you will get digestive upsets.”

As far as I know, there are no poisonous shrimps in nature. The “first venomous crustacean known to science,” Speleonectes tulumensis, was described in 2007. There is a mantis shrimp that punches, though, packing “the strongest punch of any creature in the animal kingdom,” as well as a pistol shrimp that makes a snap with its pincer to stun prey.

Regardless of its actual existence, the image of a poisonous/poisoned/poison shrimp – the exact term manifesting differently – signified a defense policy based on deterrence by punishment, aiming to make the cost of aggression against Singapore overly prohibitive. 

However, such a strategy, though “necessitated by the then poor state of the SAF, its lack of manpower, firepower and mobility – basically an armed force incapable of offensive operations, was essentially defeatist” since the shrimp would have to be eaten to upset its predator’s stomach.

Singapore’s current Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong had likewise indicated in 1984 that under such an approach, survival was problematic: “What happens if you step on a poisonous shrimp? He dies, but he will kill you . . . So we need a policy which says: ‘If you come I’ll whack you, and I’ll survive.’”

As the SAF continued to strengthen with impressive additions to the navy and air force, such as the creation of the SAF’s Joint Staff in 1984, Singapore’s defense policy shifted to deterrence by denial. This strategy seeks to prevent the putative aggressor’s victory, ensuring the city-state’s survival.

Singapore’s then Minister for Defense, Goh Chok Tong, likened such a strategy to a “porcupine” in a 1983 speech: “To have permanent peace, all Singaporeans must be ready, operationally ready, to keep out threats from any direction…Take the porcupine, for example.”

It did not only shift to denial; deterrence was omnidirectional instead of being targeted against a specific adversary, just like a porcupine curls into a ball.

Simultaneously, for this second-generation SAF, “it was hard to escape the conclusion that doctrinal emphasis was increasingly placed on the offensive.” However, others have argued that “contrary to common wisdom, no discrete policy or strategic change actually took place during the early 1980s,” and “Singapore had consistently undertaken an offensively-oriented buildup of its military since the late 1960s.”

This signifies a more proactive and perhaps even preemptive stance towards potential conventional adversaries, in contrast to an arguably purely defensive “porcupine.” As a SAF officer noted, the “presence of a strong SAF also played a key role in enabling Singapore to stand firm on her sovereign rights while resolving disputes with Malaysia arising from the water agreement, the 1990 Points-of-Agreement (POA) and the sovereignty of Pedra Branca.” Notwithstanding, deterrence via denial was still meant to mitigate Singapore’s inherent vulnerabilities.

If anything, these vulnerabilities would only be exacerbated with “a shift in the security landscape, which widened to include non-conventional threats such as terrorism and piracy,” especially after the watershed of the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States. In December 2001, Singapore uncovered a plot by the Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) network to attack various targets in the city-state, which only served to emphasize the threat of terrorism.

The third generation (3G) transformation of the SAF started in 2004 to morph it into a full-spectrum force able to contest the entire spectrum of conflict from peacetime to war and anywhere in between, against both conventional and unconventional threats. This was done with a focus “in improving Command and Control Systems which allows field units to have a clearer picture of the battlefield” for greater synergy and effectiveness, taking full advantage of the technological developments of the so-called revolution in military affairs.

The 3G SAF is an “advanced networked force” fulfilling the mission of the Ministry of Defense and the Singapore military to “enhance Singapore’s peace and security through deterrence and diplomacy, and should these fail, to secure a swift and decisive victory over the aggressor.”

In balancing both the deterrence and diplomacy pillars of Singapore’s defense policy thereby, analysts have likened such a posture to the image of a dolphin: “smart, agile, manoeuvrable, and able to move quickly away from danger; and yet armed with sharp teeth and an ability to defend itself ably against larger and often more fearsome predators,” suggesting “a Singapore that is increasingly willing to use its wits, its flexibility and its manoeuvrability to outwit potential aggressors, all the while confident that in the event that such non-violent measures failed to dissuade the potential aggressor, it still maintains sufficient military capability” to prevent harm to the island. At the same time, this analogy surely works better if it were about a pod of dolphins instead of a single one.

According to the Ministry of Defense, the Next Gen SAF “will take shape by 2040 with new assets and capabilities,” and “will be more networked and capable of conducting operations in the air, land, sea and digital domains to better defend Singapore’s peace and security.” Dr. Ng Eng Hen further remarked that: “This Next Gen SAF will provide for this and the next generation, our children and theirs, greater confidence in dealing with potential aggressors, to fulfil the SAF's core mission.”

With traditional and non-traditional threats across different domains—the conventional land, sea, and air; as well as the unconventional digital and cyberspace—coupled with inherent vulnerabilities, the next image symbolizes a secure Singapore. Singapore’s national icon, “the mythical Merlion, which possesses the body of a fish and the head of a lion,” conceivably comes to mind here.

Arguably like the “dolphin,” the Merlion similarly “conjures the image of friendliness and intelligence,” attracting tourists to take photos with the statue, and yet clearly “possesses the ability to hold its own against aggressors” with its noble, majestic and fierce features.

On top of that, the part-fish, part-mammal nature of the fantastical Merlion may further suggest a multi-domain nature, invoking the more “networked and capable” Next Gen SAF and its new digital service contesting a non-physical space.

Further representing Singapore, the Merlion alludes to the unique circumstances of the city-state and its strategic choices and policies, accountable only to itself and its sovereignty and autonomy instead of having to choose sides between the great powers.

As its cultural totem sitting at the mouth of “that river which brings us life”—as Singapore’s classic song celebrating its independence, Home, goes—can the Merlion be the security mascot in the toil for Singapore’s future?

Certainly, no analogy can be perfect, as the above discussion about the gaps regarding the poison shrimp, porcupine, and dolphin has demonstrated.

Searching for the Next Gen SAF image may be a fool’s errand, given the increasing complexity of the contemporary security environment. 

Even as we desire such reductionist symbols as elegant proxies to anchor our thinking and communicate our actions, summing up Singapore’s defense policy succinctly and neatly, such shorthand may no longer be possible in the reality of the day.

Chang Jun Yan is Assistant Professor with the Military Studies Programme and the US Programme at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University. He has published on international and regional security, his area of focus, in various academic journals. Prior to joining RSIS, Jun Yan was a combat officer in the Republic of Singapore Navy (RSN). He has participated in various multilateral maritime exercises, such as the Exercise Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) in Hawaii. He was also part of the RSN’s counter-piracy operations in the Gulf of Aden and the Somali Basin, Operation Blue Sapphire (Maritime) [OBS (M)]. Jun Yan graduated from the National University of Singapore (NUS) with a BSc in Political Science and a minor in English Studies, obtained his MSc (International Relations) from RSIS, and has a PhD from the University of Queensland, Australia.

Image: Reuters.

Since the conclusion of Turkey’s presidential elections in May, much analysis has rightly focused on the implications of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s third term from both domestic and foreign policy perspectives. In American and European circles, attention focuses on whether this would be the moment that Erdogan would take the opportunity of his re-election as an excuse to reset his relationship with the West. Ties between Turkey and its Western allies have been visibly deteriorating since 2016. Inside Turkey, nearly half of the population that did not vote for him were despondent at the prospect of another five years of Erdogan at the helm, while the remaining half are curious to see if Turkey’s veteran politician will be able to fix the country’s acute and worsening economic problems. An uncomfortable yet frequently talked about prospect is missing from the litany of analyses: the likelihood of Erdogan leaving office by elections may have passed. We may be stuck with Erdogan until he passes away or is forced out of office by undemocratic means.

Part of the reason rests on the state of Turkey’s political opposition: there isn’t one that voters believe is a credible alternative to Erdogan. Close observers of Turkish electoral politics are split between those who think opposition political parties are simply incompetent and those who are convinced that the opposition is in cahoots with Erdogan and even worked to get him reelected. Depending on your point of view, both scenarios have merits. The Republican People’s Party (CHP) presidential candidate, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, ran a horrendous campaign. If one were interested in losing an election to Erdogan, one would repeat Kilicdaroglu’s strategy. The CHP camp never appeared ready or interested in taking over governing from Erdogan. As a result, much of the Turkish electorate is so thoroughly demoralized that they have disconnected themselves from politics entirely. Put simply, there is no public pressure to constrain Erdogan and certainly nothing like the Gezi Park protests. These demonstrations were the only time Erdogan feared popular unrest. Accordingly, he brutally suppressed them and branded demonstrators as terrorists. Now, Turkish citizens are politically deflated and afraid to challenge Erdogan.  

On the other hand, some commentators accuse the Kilicdaroglu campaign of working clandestinely to ensure Erdogan won the election. This emerging view argues that the opposition was not genuinely campaigning to unseat Erdogan but only engaged in the theatrics of electioneering. The main reason for doing so is because Erdogan paid some opposition leaders. Meral Aksener, the leader of the Good Party (IP)—a senior member of the electoral “Nation Alliance,” supposedly created to defeat Erdogan—is accused of receiving $100 million to torpedo their joint campaign. If this accusation is accurate, this is the surest sign that Erdogan can purchase political opposition for a price, and future elections will be nothing but charades. 

This doesn’t mean that all opposition political actors are for sale. In a scenario where Erdogan is challenged successfully by a credible and incorruptible candidate, the president would employ likely legal mechanisms to eliminate him. We are witnessing this eventuality with the mayor of Istanbul, Ekrem Imamoglu. Having been prevented from being named the CHP’s presidential candidate by Kilicdaroglu, Imamoglu has already set his sights on the 2028 presidential election campaign. For the forgeable future, Imamoglu is the likeliest person who could defeat Erdogan at the ballot box, but he is unlikely to succeed in this venture. Next spring, Imamoglu will try his hardest to be reelected mayor of Istanbul. Erdogan will do everything in his power to oust him. In the realm of legitimate (yet ethically dubious) actions, Erdogan will use the office of the presidency and the mainstream press to try and discredit Imamoglu. He will then see if this moves voter sentiment to favor his candidate. If it does, there is no need for further action: Imamoglu and the CHP lose Istanbul. If voters still favor Imamoglu over Erdogan’s candidate, then Erdogan is likely to call upon a high court to uphold a lower court ruling in 2022 that bans Imamoglu from politics. In other words, heads Erdogan wins, tails Imamoglu loses. 

Under such circumstances, if we accept that Erdogan will remain in power indefinitely, should the West just learn to live with him? After all, he is the devil we know. Perhaps we can work with him on a transactional basis since the United States and the transatlantic alliance share security interests. The Biden administration would tell us we value Turkey’s assistance in the Ukraine conflict, its efforts in containing migratory flows to the West, and the role that it could play as a bulwark to contain, even undermine, Iran. 

A transactional approach to working with Erdogan would work if the United States government were consistent and steadfast in its approach to Turkey. It is not. We should also be aware that in dealing with Erdogan, we are not dealing with an ally but a budding autocrat interested in leveraging his position with Western security institutions to his own advantage. The Biden administration frequently sanctions Turkish entities for violating international sanctions against Russia’s illegal war in Ukraine. It has issued numerous warnings to Erdogan to instruct Turkey’s banking sector (which proved successful) to stop accepting Russian financial transfers, allowing oligarchs to operate with impunity on the world stage and dodge sanctions. Since 2022, scores of Turkish companies have supplied the Russian military with dual-use microchip technology that helps operate Moscow’s weaponry. Instead of insisting Ankara ends its support of Putin’s war, the White House panders to Erdogan. 

Moreover, before Erdogan does the bare minimum of what is required of an ally and approves Sweden’s NATO membership, why is the Biden team quietly coordinating with the World Bank to extend Turkey a virtually conditions-free line of credit worth $35 billion to prop up the dictator’s ailing economy? Would it not be better to insist that Erdogan makes good on Sweden before giving him free money?  Or before Biden asks Congress to remove its objections to selling Turkey new F-16 fighter jets, we could request Ankara to offer guarantees (through an ongoing certification process) that it will not threaten other NATO allies such as Greece, or while we’re on the subject, ask Erdogan to end shipping rocket-making materials to terrorist organizations such as Hamas? 

Oscillating between sticks and carrots plays to Erdogan’s strengths. It allows him to manipulate different branches of the U.S. government to get what he wants while remaining noncommittal on the White House’s key expectations. At the recent United Nations General Assembly, Erdogan gave an interview with PBS News, where he announced that he “trusts Russia as much as the United States.” The United States should stand consistently behind its demands from Erdogan before giving him what he wants for one simple reason: he needs the United States more than we need him. Let’s meet his jingoism with consistency and stop him playing us like a fiddle.

Sinan Ciddi is a non-resident senior fellow at FDD and an expert on Turkish domestic politics and foreign policy. He is also an Associate Professor of National Security Studies at Marine Corps University (MCU). Prior to joining MCU, Sinan was the Executive Director of the Institute of Turkish Studies, based at Georgetown University (2011–2020). Between 2008 and 2011, he established the Turkish Studies program at the University of Florida’s Center for European Studies. He continues to serve as an Adjunct Associate Professor at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service.

Image: Shutterstock

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The U.S. Air Force is retiring strike aircraft at an alarming rate. At the same time, concerns are mounting over whether Washington is ready to wage a great power war against Russia or China if a crisis breaks out. 

That means, in theory, the Air Force needs as many B-21 Raider stealth bombers as possible. In the past, numbers as high as 200 or more new planes have bounced around Washington and in op-eds over the years. Some experts and policymakers, such as former Trump National Security Advisor Robert C. O'Brien, told the National Interest recently that 300-400 new stealth bombers were needed due to the military threat from Beijing. 

The most accurate assessment I would bank on would be from the Heritage Foundation's air power expert John Venable, who told me that he thought in the "near term," 100 B-21 Raiders were possible, with 168 stealth bombers being the most likely "long term" number. 

But with news breaking recently that Washington, at most, can only count on a handful of the new stealth bomber in the coming years - caping out at being able to procure 10 B-21s per year by sometime in the 2030s - many are asking an obvious question: how many B-21 Raiders does the U.S. military need?

I put that question to several top experts I have worked with over the years to come up with some straightforward answers. 

B-21 Game: 100 Bombers Could Work 

"With respect to the B-21, it's hard to say because everything depends on context," explained Dr. Robert Farley, an Air Force expert at the University of Kentucky.

 "I haven't seen any good analysis of how many B-21s specifically would be needed, but my sense is that it's more than 20 (B-2 numbers) and that 100 might be fine, depending on how survivable the aircraft turns out to be in a combat environment. Attrition is inevitable, even for a stealth aircraft, but 100 gives a nice cushion while also ensuring constant pressure against Chinese forces." 

Some Defense Experts are Skeptical

"I am leery of the U.S. Air Force's intent to buy/produce 100 B-21s," explained Retired U.S. Army Lt. Colonel Daniel Davis, a Senior Fellow at the national security think tank Defense Priorities, in a long-form interview with National Interest. 

He continued, noting that: "[T]he unit cost is presently claimed to be $692 million per copy in 2022 dollars. The DDG-1000 Zumwalt Destroyer program was originally slated to produce 32 warships, but was then reduced to 24, then 7, and eventually three. The cost per unit exploded, by 53%, to $4.8 billion a pop. If the U.S. Air Force produces 100 B-21s, then the unit cost is claimed to be nearly $700 million each. But with America's military acquisition history, nothing is ever produced on time, or at anywhere near the budget projections. The likelihood is high that we'll never buy 100, and thus the unit cost will likewise explode.

The Russia-Ukraine war is showing that the trend is towards ever-advancing unmanned platforms. Spending nearly a billion dollars on one manned bomber is not smart, as we need more and cheaper unmanned platforms. If you lose one B-21, a significant portion of your capacity is knocked out. But if you lose a bunch of less expensive unmanned platforms, you can continue to function (and along with that, we need to have platforms that can be manufactured in short order - not years-long per airframe).

So sure, we need some manned planes, but possibly 20 or 30. Or, we just keep upgrading and modernizing the B-52s, B-1s, etc, and put most of our money and future in unmanned airframes we can afford to build (and afford to lose)." 

Davis also put the B-21 Raider in the context of the Ukraine war in a different way, urging others to:

"[L]ook at how Russia has been very reluctant to use its most expensive Su-35 fighters, the Ukraine side rarely uses its best fighter jets, and the Russians have been almost unwilling to use their new Armata tanks. Because they are so expensive. And even in our own history, we were always very reluctant to use our new F-22s and some of the other kind of expensive air frames, because we didn’t want to risk losing them.

It doesn’t do any good to have expensive airframes that you’re afraid to use. It’s much wiser to have platforms that perform necessary functions, but are unmanned, and at affordable prices. If we build a future that makes using high-tech weapons cost-prohibitive we rarely use in combat situations, then they do us no good. We have to have platforms that can do the job, yet won’t break the bank, and can be lost in combat without costing us capacity.  

Bottom line, the B-21 program is pursuing the wrong objectives."  

How Does China See the B-21?

I asked Ian Easton, a long-time China watcher and expert at the Project 2049 Institute in Washignton, DC, for his take on how Beijing sees the B-21 Raider.

He explained that "[A]vailable evidence all suggests Chinese Communist Party strategists are haunted by the specter that their forces might face American stealth bomber strikes during a Taiwan Invasion scenario, something which would make it extraordinarily difficult for them to take and occupy that country.

Easton also stressed that "[B]eijing has invested heavily in the construction of a massive air and missile defense network across from Taiwan. But it almost certainly cannot defeat raids from advanced American platforms. Looking ahead, the US Air Force’s B-21 stealth bomber program is vital for ensuring that the CCP doesn’t miscalculate, assume a Taiwan invasion would come at an acceptable cost, and break the peace." 

Harry J. Kazianis (@Grecianformula or Email: hkazianis@nationalinterest.org) is the new Senior Director of National Security Affairs at the Center for the National Interest. He also serves as Executive Editor of its publishing arm, The National Interest. He previously served as part of the foreign policy team for the 2016 presidential campaign of Senator Ted Cruz and the John Hay Initiative. Kazianis, in the past, also managed the foreign policy communications efforts of the Heritage Foundation, served as Editor-In-Chief of the Tokyo-based The Diplomat magazine, and as a WSD-Handa Fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS): PACNET. Kazianis has held foreign policy fellowships at the Potomac Foundation and the University of Nottingham. He has provided expert commentary, op-eds, and analysis for many outlets, including The Wall Street Journal, Yonhap, The New York Times, Hankyoreh, The Washington Post, MSNBC, Fox News, Fox Business, CNN, and others.

In studying North Korea, there is little certainty. However, all the data points over many decades—including North Korea’s hostile relationship with the United States and South Korea, its experience of U.S. carpet-bombing during the Korean War, the constant threat of a U.S. nuclear attack, the dilapidated state of North Korea’s conventional military, the cost-effective nature of investing in nuclear weapons versus conventional military assets, the prestige provided by being one of only nine countries with nuclear weapons, the experience of other countries being toppled or threatened after giving up their nuclear weapons, the incomparable strength of nuclear weapons as a deterrent, and the general paranoid nature of the Kim regime—suggest that North Korea will not disarm in the short, medium, and probably long-term.

Not surprisingly, the U.S. intelligence community assesses North Korea will not abandon its nuclear weapons.

The more important question is, given that North Korea will not disarm and the two countries have a hostile relationship, what can the United States do to help reduce tensions, decrease misperceptions and miscommunication, and lower the risk of a nuclear war?

In other words, how can the United States achieve peaceful, not hostile, coexistence with a nuclear North Korea? First, a peace treaty is not necessary to live in relative peace. Between 1994–2008, the two countries peacefully coexisted. They constantly engaged diplomatically. U.S. military officers worked alongside Korean People’s Army officers in North Korea to conduct recovery operations for U.S. service member remains from the Korean War (1996-2005). U.S. Congressional members and staff visited North Korea frequently. Many U.S. NGOs conducted humanitarian projects in North Korea.

North Korean academic, sports, and cultural delegations visited the United States, approximately 800 to 1000 American citizens traveled to North Korea every year, and North Korea’s military demonstrations were limited (e.g., one missile test between 1994–2002). Today, none of these characteristics of peaceful coexistence exist, and North Korea conducted more missile tests in 2022 (sixty-nine) than in any previous year.

Of course, the situation is different today since North Korea possesses nuclear weapons.  But this is precisely why the United States and North Korea need to increase dialogue and improve relations. But doing so will require a courageous paradigm shift by one or both governments.

Certain things like denuclearization and sanctions relief will remain difficult, but many other aspects of peaceful coexistence should be achievable and are in both countries’ interests.

Frank Aum is the senior expert on Northeast Asia at the U.S. Institute of Peace. He oversees the Institute’s work on Northeast Asia and focuses on ways to strengthen diplomacy to reduce tensions and enhance peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula. From 2010 to 2017, he worked at the Department of Defense as special counsel to the Army General Counsel, special assistant to the assistant secretary of defense for Asian and Pacific Security Affairs, and senior advisor on North Korea in the Office of the Secretary of Defense. During this time, he advised four secretaries of defense on issues related to Northeast Asia and the Korean Peninsula. Aum also served as head of delegation for working-level negotiations with the Republic of Korea on U.S.-ROK Alliance matters and received the Secretary of Defense Medal for Outstanding Public Service.

In March 2023, Chinese president Xi Jinping launched the “Global Civilization Initiative” (GCI), his third such effort to build an international “community of common destiny”—the Chinese president’s euphemism for a world order in which China predominates. By garnering international endorsements for the principle of “respect[ing] and support[ing] the development paths independently chosen by different peoples,” the GCI seeks to undercut the moral primacy of liberal democracies and legitimize autocratic governance models like Xi’s regime.

Left unanswered by China watchers in the West, however, is how the Chinese party-state will implement this newest strategic initiative beyond the intercultural exchanges that Xi claimed would be the GCI’s primary focus. The following analysis of Chinese Communist Party speeches and state media about the implementation of the GCI reveals much on this score.

These Chinese Communist Party (CCP) statements indicate that while serving as a platform for some legitimate cultural exchanges, the Global Civilization Initiative will likely act as a benign front for expanding the CCP’s information and influence operations already working to control global public discourse on the party. Information operations will likely entail efforts to expand the global operations of state media companies and increase the export of CCP propaganda that celebrates the party’s governance model. Augmenting this global propaganda campaign will be CCP influence operations that recruit political and intellectual elites, primarily in the Global South, to promote policies within their home countries that align with China’s interests.

Information Operations

Recent statements by CCP officials reveal that the GCI will act as a foreign propaganda tool. Specifically, the initiative will advance Xi’s ongoing campaign to increase China’s global “discourse power” by exporting CCP propaganda—a media offensive designed to legitimize the party’s values among targeted audiences and preemptively stem the flow of subversive ideologies back into China. Consider the recent statements of Wang Huning, who serves as the Chairman of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference. This organization coordinates the party-state bureaucracy’s overseas influence and information operations. In May, he stated that officials should “accelerate the construction of Chinese discourse and narrative system, and deepen exchanges and mutual learning among civilizations” to “showcase the achievements of Chinese civilization.”

This statement echoes Xi’s directive delivered at the 20th National Party Congress to “tell China’s stories well” by creating a CCP-friendly global media ecosystem, one circumventing Western networks. It likewise dovetails with an existing policy of deploying Chinese culture to inspire favorable perceptions of the CCP. A state media analysis of Xi’s external propaganda policy encouraged officials to “make good use of excellent Chinese culture in external propaganda, explain Chinese civilization in foreign propaganda, to soften the attitude, change the viewpoints and transform the stance of the international audience.”

As such, this synchronized messaging in leadership directives indicates that the GCI will parallel, if not absorb, existing efforts to make global public opinion more supportive of Xi’s regime through external cultural propaganda campaigns. Accordingly, the GCI’s intercultural dialogues and other public diplomacy initiatives will likely amplify an image of China that celebrates the party’s autocratic governance system, crowding out more objective media narratives that would exhibit that system’s reliance on mass repression.

Still, in its infancy, the GCI has yet to deliver policy outcomes on the scale of the Belt and Road Initiative or even Xi’s prior Global Security and Global Development Initiatives. Nevertheless, this latest initiative has already strengthened China’s “discourse power” within the nations of the Global South. For instance, the CCP’s Propaganda Department organized the August 2023 BRICS High-Level Media Forum, where state media outlets from the organization’s five members pledged to cooperate on “enhanc[ing] the discourse power of BRICS countries” through media industry coordination. Such coordination between state media outlets would allow elites to spread their preferred narratives, especially those of the Russian and Chinese governments that already wage information warfare to further their geopolitical ambitions.

It is worth noting that the same BRICS summit also prohibited coverage by independent journalists, further underscoring the restrictions on press freedom resulting from governments following the CCP’s lead in enhancing their state “discourse systems.” Since the CCP primarily targets the developing world in its information operations, these efforts to expand China’s “discourse power” under the GCI will likely amplify the propaganda of ruling elites in the Global South while repressing independent journalists’ investigations into public affairs. As such, this summit illustrates the threat posed to free expression by Chinese information operations deployed under the guise of “mutual learning” between civilizations.

Without more concrete data on policy outcomes, examining official Chinese writings on the implementation of the GCI and information operations writ large may offer insights into the initiative’s future development as a propaganda tool. For example, the state-owned China Daily newspaper suggested that artificial intelligence and big data technologies should be used to expedite “cultural information” sharing across global media networks, indicating that the party will leverage emerging technologies to rapidly disseminate propaganda before Western media can spread more objective narratives. Such high-tech propagandizing would complement the party’s conventional tactics of establishing overseas state media outlets, acquiring majority equity stakes in independent foreign media organizations to control their content, and paying for inserts in mainstream Western newspapers to inject party narratives into democratic societies.

Though civilian wings of the Chinese party-state operate these culturally flavored information operations, they also dovetail with the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) “media warfare” initiative that broadcasts a peaceful and harmonious image of China to engender favorable perceptions of its military operations. As such, ample precedent exists in the history of Chinese information operations to contend that the GCI will amplify state propaganda across mainstream and emerging media platforms, particularly when China is engaged in provocative behavior that may undermine its preferred image of a peaceful rising power.

Believing that the GCI is a campaign for propagating Chinese culture would confuse the initiative’s means and ends. In reality, the GCI uses cultural propaganda to legitimize the CCP’s revisionist activities as it seeks to undermine Washington’s leadership in setting international norms of state behavior.

Influence Operations

While its information operations will make broad efforts at shaping public opinion, the CCP will likely use the GCI as a platform for conducting targeted influence operations and espionage against foreign governments. President Xi’s claim that the GCI would commit the CCP “to deepen[ing] interactions with political parties and other organizations to expand the convergence of ideas and interests” clarifies that the initiative expands the party’s foreign political influence. Yet the above assessment regarding more subversive activities is substantiated by the fact that the initiative was unveiled at the CCP’s High-Level Meeting with World Political Parties. The party’s International Liaison Department (ILD) coordinated this diplomatic event, which forges connections with foreign governments to collect intelligence on their internal politics and recruit assets for spying and influence operations. According to researchers at the Hoover Institution, the ILD uses this party diplomacy to befriend and recruit “up-and-coming foreign politicians” so that they promote pro-China policies once they attain higher office.

CCP leaders’ statements likewise suggest that these influence efforts will expand beyond parties to reach the whole intellectual ecosystem that informs policy debates in democratic societies. ILD

Director Liu Jianchao, for instance, wrote in a China Daily editorial that GCI would promote “cultural dialogue” through “political parties, parliaments, research institutions, schools, enterprises, and NGOs,” indicating that his organization would work to co-opt individuals across the breadth of civil society so that they promote pro-China policies among their home countries’ elites. One could argue that the ILD’s cultural exchanges with foreign elites may not occasion efforts to recruit intelligence assets, given the apolitical substance of such meetings. The history of Chinese overseas espionage tactics, however, would suggest otherwise. Indeed, Chinese intelligence operatives often recruit assets under the guise of promoting Chinese culture to evade suspicion and induce cooperation from the target, according to the U.S.–China Economic and Security Commission. Furthermore, the Ministry of State Security (MSS), China’s overseas intelligence collection agency, even operates a front organization called the “China International Cultural Exchange Center.” Cultural exchanges between corporations and universities, as ILD Chair Liu recommended, would also provide the MSS with opportunities to deploy non-official operatives, often private individuals acting by proxy, to recruit assets in the private sector and academia—a frequently employed tactic, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Accordingly, cultural exchanges may share the beauty of Chinese culture with foreign audiences. Yet, they also enable the Chinese security apparatus to increase the party’s influence within and insight into the domestic affairs of foreign countries.

If history is any guide, Chinese intelligence will likely conduct espionage under the auspices of the GCI. Additionally, GCI illuminates the future direction of the party’s influence operations deployed in the name of “intercivilizational collaboration.” For example, in his GCI inaugural speech before political parties from Latin America, Africa, Central Asia, and Southeast Asia, Xi promised “to share governance experience with political parties and organizations”—a reiteration of longstanding PRC policy to instruct foreign parties in establishing one-party dictatorships within their home countries. Described by scholars as “authoritarian learning,” this emboldening of autocratic elites in developing countries is likely to increase now that it has been enshrined as a core tenet of one of Xi’s global initiatives.

Outside of co-opting national politicians to advance pro-China narratives and policies in their home countries, CCP leadership statements reveal an intent to recruit state and local level officials for the same purpose. This intent is made evident by recent remarks delivered by the President of the Chinese People’s Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries (CPAFFC)—a United Front organization that, according to the State Department, “directly and malignly influence[s] state and local leaders to promote the PRC’s global agenda.” Consistent with State’s characterization, President Lin Songtian claimed that the GCI would deploy city-to-city diplomacy and public diplomacy with the aim of “empathizing people, convincing people with reason, and conveying truth with words” to “enhance the international community’s awareness and understanding of our country’s development achievements, development path, political system, and values.”

That CPAFFC aims to flood local and state audiences with CCP propaganda is evident in this statement; left unsaid, however, is the fact that the organization uses this subnational diplomacy to recruit local officials to advocate for China-friendly policies that their national government may be unwilling to implement. CPAFCC also exploits the implicit threat of revoking bilateral investment deals between Chinese and foreign cities to pressure local governments into endorsing the CCP’s illegitimate territorial claims, as occurred when a sister-city agreement between a Chinese and an American city stipulated that the latter could not have any association with Taiwan for the partnership to go forward. Even when purportedly promoting Chinese culture, CPAFFC will likely create networks of subnational influence to move the targeted country’s domestic politics towards China’s interests.

Spreading “Xivilization”

Despite the above analysis, the state-owned Global Times maintains that the GCI will forge cooperative relationships with other countries, rebutting the American notion of an inevitable “clash of civilizations” between the West and the rest. However, there are no clearer signals of the CCP’s strategic intentions than the official statements and actions of its leaders. Their directives reveal that they will use subversive methods abroad to shape how countries evaluate the legitimacy of the party’s foreign policy and domestic rule. In deploying influence and information operations globally, the CCP is waging the very cultural warfare it purports to reject in order to best the West in global moral leadership.

Andrew Weaver is a sophomore at Columbia University studying Political Science and Chinese. He has worked with the U.S. government and think tanks on research projects pertaining to China’s foreign policy. The views expressed here are his own and do not reflect the opinions or beliefs of the organizations with which he is affiliated.

Image: Shutterstock. 

As simmering tensions in East Asia rise to a boil, the recent discovery of a Chinese penetration of the U.S. military’s telecommunication systems in Guam should be setting off alarm bells across the executive branch and in the halls of Congress. Though Chinese penetration of U.S. networks for espionage has been well documented for more than two decades, the targeting of critical infrastructure represents a significant escalation by China and highlights critical vulnerabilities the Department of Defense (DoD) needs to immediately address.

Though the United States tends to view warfare as a challenge for the military to confront, our enemies have a vastly different outlook.

America’s adversaries are always eager to deny or degrade our military’s ability to mobilize globally and execute national security objectives at scale. The war in Ukraine, saber-rattling in the South China Sea, and a U.S. presidential election on the horizon further exacerbate geopolitical tensions. Lately, they have succeeded by exploiting vulnerabilities in operational technology (OT) devices that control much of our critical infrastructure. 

The recent discovery of Chinese malicious code embedded in the telecommunications systems used by the U.S. military in Guam, which is home to three strategic U.S. bases, sent waves through the national security community. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) currently uses cyberspace to achieve espionage and intellectual property theft objectives. However, they aspire to use malware hidden in our critical networks to disrupt our response to a future CCP invasion of Taiwan. This cannot be overstated: denying the availability of weapon systems in the garrison is as effective as destroying them on the battlefield.

Now is the time to shore up the DoD’s Control Systems (CS) and OT security and build resiliency across the department’s vast digital landscape.  

Critical Infrastructure in the Crosshairs

Over the last decade, critical infrastructure has increasingly become a target for adversarial nation-states and sophisticated criminal actors due to ubiquitous vulnerabilities within legacy OT systems and the lack of security control standards among most Internet of Things (IoT) devices. 

Prominent examples of critical infrastructure cyber breaches include the 2013 cyberattack on the Bowman Avenue Dam in New York by Iranian hackers, the 2021 cyberattack on the Discovery Bay water treatment plant in California by a former employee, the 2021 ransomware attack on Colonial Pipeline by the Russia-linked Darkside Group, and the 2022 compromise of the Oldsmar, Florida water treatment facility serving the Tampa metropolitan area in the days leading up to the Super Bowl. This list continues to grow because critical infrastructure represents a lucrative target with a high margin of success.

Many of the same vulnerable devices, systems, and applications used across critical infrastructure entities that support the civilian population are found on our military bases at home and abroad. On the most basic level, every military base requires an uninterrupted power supply, telecommunications, and medical, water, and sewage treatment support. Many mission-critical assets cannot go offline without severe consequences to the readiness of our global military force spread across more than 800 installations spanning seventy countries and territories.

Congress Expects Accountability

Congressional concerns regarding the DoD’s lack of visibility into its mission-critical assets and its inability to secure its critical infrastructure are documented by a series of government reporting requirements dating back seven years. A few highlights include: Section 1647 of the Fiscal Year (FY) 2016 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) requested insight into the cyber vulnerabilities of weapon systems; Section 1650 of the FY2017 NDAA directed a pilot program to understand better options that could defend CS against cyber intrusions; Section 1639 of the FY2018 NDAA mandated that CS/OT be included in the secretary of defense’s (SECDEF) Cyber Scorecard; Section 1643 of the FY2019 NDAA required the secretary of defense to designate a single official responsible for the DoD’s CS/OT. 

Most recently, Section 1505 of the Fiscal Year 2022 NDAA requires the DoD chief information officer to address cybersecurity readiness this November by documenting the department’s ability to secure its mission-critical assets and operational infrastructure against defined standards and objectives to protect CS/OT assets. This provision is critical to defining the requirements for future funding from Congress and implementation by January 1, 2025.

With the DoD on the hook to show progress, many across the department have pointed to the operational prototype platform “More Situational Awareness for Control Systems” (pronounced “MOSAICS”), as the pathfinder to deploy a “zero trust” strategy for the department’s industrial control systems at scale. However, the president’s FY24 budget request for building a MOSAICS-like architecture is just a few million dollars and remains in its early prototype stage.

To put this into perspective, the largest U.S. banks spend an annual average of 10 percent of their budgets on cybersecurity, often surpassing $1 billion per bank. The contrast is striking.

What Must Be Done

Government leaders must acknowledge that catastrophic failures may occur if cybersecurity continues to be underfunded. More robust budget submissions are needed to cover, at a minimum, more secure communications and the continuous monitoring and remediation of vulnerable devices. Doing so immediately will help minimize the danger to our military forces of adversaries exploiting known vulnerabilities at home and abroad.

The DoD must move beyond simply studying the CS/OT cybersecurity problem and immediately begin implementing capabilities through existing programs, where possible, and new investments where no program exists. 

Additionally, Congress should hold hearings during this session to better understand the DoD’s plan and funding requests to safeguard its critical infrastructure. Testimony from senior DoD officials and CS/OT private industry cybersecurity experts will give committee members the answers to spur the action required to establish cyber resiliency across the DoD’s mission-critical CS/OT. This cannot wait.

As a nation, we must demand accountability for safeguarding our mission-critical infrastructure and action from our legislators and DoD leaders. 

National security is at stake.

Alison King is the Vice President of Government Affairs at Forescout Technologies. She served on the United States Cyberspace Solarium Commission as the Strategic Communications and Legislative Affairs Director. Forescout is an Executive Member of the OT Cyber Coalition.

Michael McLaughlin is Co-Chair of the Cybersecurity and Data Privacy Practice Group at the law firm of Buchanan Ingersoll & Rooney, PC. He is co-author of Battlefield Cyber: How China and Russia are Undermining our Democracy and National Security and previously served as senior counterintelligence advisor for United States Cyber Command.  

Image: Shutterstock.

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